First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - MARCH 25th

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Quote

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wikiquote (Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.)

This Day in History

March 25th, 421

Venice is founded at twelve o'clock noon, according to legend

Venice is founded at twelve o'clock noon, according to legend.

Wikipedia  Photo: Venice gondola ● Rialto Bridge, Venice, credit Peter Geller, National Geographic ● Venice & the Po River.


March 25th, 1199

Richard I of England

Richard I of England is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France, leading to his death on April 6.

Wikipedia  Image: Richard I of England: The ruins of Château Gaillard. Even a rain of blood – considered a bad omen – did not dissuade Richard from building his vast and expensive fortress in Normandy. ● 19th-century portrait of Richard by Merry-Joseph Blondel ● Richard I being anointed during his coronation in Westminster Abbey, from a 13th-century chronicle ● Effigy (1199) of Richard I at Fontevraud Abbey, Anjou.


March 25th, 1821

Greek War of Independence: Tripolitsa, Greece, falls and 30,000 Turks are massacred

Greek War of Independence:
1821 - Traditional date of the start of the Greek War of Independence. The war had actually began since 23 February 1821. The date was chosen in the early years of the Greek state so that it falls on the day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, strengthening the ties between the Greek Orthodox Church and the newly-found state.
1924 - On the anniversary of Greek Independence, Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaims the Second Hellenic Republic.

Wikipedia  Painting: Bishop Germanos of old Patras blessing the Greek banner at Agia Lavra on the outset of the national revolt against the Turks on 25 March 1821, by Theodoros Vryzakis (oil painting, 1852, Benaki Museum, Athens).


March 25th, 1865

Lincoln Memorial: an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War, Battle of Mobile Bay: at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports

American Civil War:
1865 - Battle of Fort Stedman; In Virginia, Confederate forces temporarily capture Fort Stedman from the Union.

Wikipedia  Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.


March 25th, 1941

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945 World War II: Marseille liberated

World War II:
1941 - The Kingdom of Yugoslavia joins the Axis powers with the signing of the Tripartite Pact.
Post World War II:
1949 - Operation Priboi; The extensive deportation campaign known as March deportation is conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to force collectivisation (collective farming) by way of terror. The Soviet authorities deport more than 92,000 people from the Baltics to remote areas of the Soviet Union.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.
Marseille, France at night.


March 25th, 1971

Vietnam War: Operation Swift; U.S. Marines engage the North Vietnamese in battle in the Que Son Valley Vietnam War: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress

Vietnam War:
1971 - Operation Lam Son 719; The Army of the Republic of Vietnam abandon an attempt to cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.

Wikipedia  Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, credit Free Republic;
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.


March 25th, 1979

Space Shuttle program: STS-28 August 8-13, 1989, Space shuttle Columbia arrives at Launch Pad 39B after the rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building the night before ● An electrical storm and driving rain preceded the first night launch of a shuttle mission on August 30, 1983 ● Columbia’s second mission launched on November 12, 1981. (Commanded by Joe H. Engle and piloted by Richard H. Truly, it was also the last time NASA flew a rookie crew and the external fuel tank was painted white.)

Space Shuttle program: The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.

Wikipedia  Photo: Space Shuttle program; STS-28 August 8-13, 1989, Space Shuttle Columbia arrives at Launch Pad 39B after the rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building the night before ● An electrical storm and driving rain preceded the first night launch of a shuttle mission on August 30, 1983 ● Columbia’s second mission launched on November 12, 1981. (Commanded by Joe H. Engle and piloted by Richard H. Truly, it was also the last time NASA flew a rookie crew and the external fuel tank was painted white.) credit NASA.